Abyss of Cenote

The Abyss of Cenote (cave) in the Italian Dolomites is mainly one large chamber (pictured here) with a narrow shaft that enters from the top containing a 165m deep ice plug. The ‘tongue' of the ice plug can be seen in the top of this picture with a striking black and white appearance in which the folds can clearly be seen. At the bottom of the cave, 285m below the surface, the floor is covered in a slope of breakdown blocks that have fallen from the roof and walls. These rocks cover another large mass of ice, the thickness of which is unknown. The laser scan of this lower part of the cave was carried out in November 2015 and tied into the scans of the upper part of the cave, which were taken in October/November 2016. The La Venta exploration team will return to this cave in a few years time to repeat the scan and monitor at high resolution the changes in the ice plug and ice floor.